Free mics {mikes if you're English}

grimtraveller

grimtraveller

If only for a moment.....
A couple of days back, I was doing a delivery to a company that had been in the news alot a few years back for alleged 'naughtiness'. Anyhow, I noticed a couple of mic boxes there and asked the guy there if they were indeed mics. I just wanted to look at them to be honest and see if I'd heard of them. HR has made aware of mics in a way I never was prior to last year.
He said 'yeah, do you want them ?'. So I said OK. He said they'd bought them for when they did press releases. Got home and did some reading up on them, both condensers, one is an AKG C1000S, the other a Rode NT2000. When I looked up the prices I was quite chuffed. Being a cheapskate, I would never have spent that kind of money on mikes. The only "expensive" one I have is an SM58 that I bought a few years back for £70. That's pricey, to me !
Tested them out, they work well. I'm looking forward to trying them on a series of applications.
I was just curious if anyone here had much experience of either mic, what they thought of them etc. Regardless of whether they're generally liked or not, I'm keeping them. I'm OK with the mics I have and it wouldn't have entered my head to buy more so this was a pleasant surprize out of the blue.
 
I have a couple of C-1000's. I like them on toms and the occaional snare drum. I've used them as overheads and acoustic guitar but I don't care for them in that application.
 
grimtraveller said:
A couple of days back, I was doing a delivery to a company that had been in the news alot a few years back for alleged 'naughtiness'. Anyhow, I noticed a couple of mic boxes there and asked the guy there if they were indeed mics. I just wanted to look at them to be honest and see if I'd heard of them. HR has made aware of mics in a way I never was prior to last year.
He said 'yeah, do you want them ?'. So I said OK. He said they'd bought them for when they did press releases. Got home and did some reading up on them, both condensers, one is an AKG C1000S, the other a Rode NT2000. When I looked up the prices I was quite chuffed. Being a cheapskate, I would never have spent that kind of money on mikes. The only "expensive" one I have is an SM58 that I bought a few years back for £70. That's pricey, to me !
Tested them out, they work well. I'm looking forward to trying them on a series of applications.
I was just curious if anyone here had much experience of either mic, what they thought of them etc. Regardless of whether they're generally liked or not, I'm keeping them. I'm OK with the mics I have and it wouldn't have entered my head to buy more so this was a pleasant surprize out of the blue.
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Actually the correct word is "mic.", even in English - "Mike" is a person's name and does not apply to a microphone (except by people who don't know the proper abbreviation). ;) :rolleyes: :D

The mics you mention are OK inexpensive microphones - though the AKG C1000 is the mic. that has the most bad things said about it than any other microphone I have heard.

But give them a try and if they do what you want them to do - then it's perfect.
 
John Willett said:
Actually the correct word is "mic.", even in English - "Mike" is a person's name and does not apply to a microphone (except by people who don't know the proper abbreviation). ;) :rolleyes: :D
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that drives me insane - I see it in major magazines - everywhere -

ok so I am reading the post and I get to:

Anyhow, I noticed a couple of mic boxes there and asked the guy there if they were indeed mics. I just wanted to look at them to be honest and see if I'd heard of the
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And im like - holy crap - Grim got a case of free mics and hes giving them away woohoo!

nope :mad:
congratulations

that's pretty awesome man - free toys are always nice - that Rode looks pretty good
 
m.g. eddie said:
This thread title is misleading, I demand a free mic! Please!
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;) It's deliberately so ! When I was a kid, my sisters and I used to play this game called "Made you look !" in which we'd describe something and say "look at that !" in an attempt to get the other person to look. It later developed into "Maddings" in which you'd go for something outrageous but plausible {'Woah ! look at that overturned lorry on fire !!'}. I later learned that it's not a game and that newspapers sell that way with their headlines !

moresound said:
:laughings: I thought the same thing.

No kidding Grim you should be looking around every corner now for more free microphones. ;)
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Over the last 10 years or so, I've been in so many offices and seen amps, guitar cases, keyboards etc lying around. It's not been unusual that said items stay in the same position for months on end. But on enquiring, it always turns out the musical stuff is being used. Oh well !
arcadeko said:
that drives me insane - I see it in major magazines - everywhere -
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John Willett said:
Actually the correct word is "mic.", even in English - "Mike" is a person's name and does not apply to a microphone (except by people who don't know the proper abbreviation). ;) :rolleyes: :D
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Not according to Collins dictionary. There's only one entry under "Mike" - and it is indeed 'microphone'.
That said, ever since joining HR, I deliberately interchange the two.
John Willett said:
The mics you mention are OK inexpensive microphones - though the AKG C1000 is the mic. that has the most bad things said about it than any other microphone I have heard.

But give them a try and if they do what you want them to do - then it's perfect.
Click to expand...
To be honest with you, I couldn't tell a good mic from a crap one although I can now say which mikes will be suitable for which applications. Late last year I was recording some congas and my condensers sounded awful. They made it sound like I was patting my thigh with open slaps. In desperation, I tried an SM58 and the difference was dramatic. Suddenly, they sounded like congas.
Both mics will do what I want because for me, a microphone amplifies sound ! I'm kind of basic like that.

arcadeko said:
that's pretty awesome man - free toys are always nice - that Rode looks pretty good
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I'm a pretty sparse bloke. I hate clutter and I never have what I won't use. I loved that thread on gear acquisition a few months back and I marvelled at the amount of gear some people said they had. Some of the ones in the analog forum make enlightening reading. But when I'm on the move, things catch my eye, more for my kids than anything. Because some of the companies I deliver stuff to are advertizing/media companies, you'll see things like trampolines, magazines or huge posters or whatever and when I ask what will happen to those things once they're done, quite often I'm told "they'll be dumped". So we collect stuff sometimes and give them to schools. But people often offer milk, pens, files, food, whatever. Most times I'll say 'no' because I've observed clutterers in action ! That's how it starts. But even though I didn't need the mics, when offered, I instantly thought of uses and if push came to shove, I could always sell them. I need some 'dukla prague' at the moment as our boiler is in the process of dying a dignified but 'hot shower suddenly going cold' death.
I'm going to keep them though. I'll probably still have them in 20 years if I'm still alive !
 
Free mics are always nice.

Last week I was doing a little carpentry in a bookstore, they gave me this Sennheiser MD 22 they had laying around.

My first pair of mics was a pair of MD 421 from my grandfathers attic. :D
 
Calling them mics isn't bad. It's when people say things like "miced" and "micing" that it sounds wrong. :D
 
John Willett said:
though the AKG C1000 is the mic. that has the most bad things said about it than any other microphone I have heard.
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I don't own one but have a lot of AKG mics, the funny thing is that the 1 Giant Leap project used one for a lot of location vocals and the results were stunning, so I think that it gets an unfair bashing.

Alan.

Here is another link to an article where they mention the C1000.
 
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The C1000S is not a bad mic, it is just different. It gives you creative potential that a SM58 alone could never do. I got one when I had a little studio and the only condenser I had was a 4050. Sometimes the 4050 was too accurate and brittle for the cheap guitars I was dealing with and the C1000S gave me tonal options. It had enough character on its own to sort of hide the flaws of those inexpensive acoustic instruments which the 4050 ruthlessly captured.

Now I use it live on guitar amps when I want more cut than a dynamic offers. I'll put it on percussion and other stuff as well. Vocals is not its strong suit in my experience, but I don't see why you couldn't make it work with them in some circumstances. All in all it's a huge addition to your Shure dynamic.

By the way, does it have its little pattern altering cap? It goes over the capsule and changes it from cardioid to super-cardioid. That alone lets it do stuff the 58 can't ever do.
 
John Willett said:
Actually the correct word is "mic.", even in English - "Mike" is a person's name and does not apply to a microphone (except by people who don't know the proper abbreviation). ;) :rolleyes: :D
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I had never seen "mic" used as an abbreviation for microphone until I joined HR, and had always used "mike". Intrigued, I checked a few online dictionaries. All show "mike" and "mic" as abbreviations for microphone.

"Mike" is indeed a person's name. In fact it is my name. But that does not preclude it from having other uses . . . . like "John" is a person's name, but also another word for a toilet . . . so "Mike" being a name is completely irrelevant; words do not have fixed and singular meanings.

So, yes, the "correct" word is "mic", and so is "mike". I will continue to use both indiscriminately.
 
Just a quick update on these mics, I've done quite a bit of vocal recording and some acoustic guitar, tambourine and congas. The rode is thus far the better mic. It brings out an interesting flavour on 6 and 12 string acoustics and vocals seem to cut quite well through a dense soundscape. Mind you, often I'll record vocals a semitone lower for extra 'cut'. But it all helps. The AKG, I need to do a bit more with and figure out how not to get it so 'cutty'. At times it reminds me of being sliced by a sword.
But both are decent additions, which, having cost nothing, must be counted a result.
 
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